A Provocative Space of Critical Conversation

Issue № 0 | July 2008

We have titled issue #0 "debut" as it is our very first issue and not quite volume one. Only members of the core staff have contributed essays and art for this initial issue. Each piece queries something we may have taken for granted about politics, religion, culture, and media. Lauren Espineli's photo essay considers how her trip to Egypt defied her expectations. Valerie Bailey Fischer examines desires to be a Good Samaritan in a road trip through Israel and Palestine. Jacqueline Hidalgo considers how our quests for transformation must be coupled with practices of everyday life. Marc Lombardo traces the limits that our current remembrance of Martin Luther King, Jr. place upon our own efforts to transform the world. Paloma Ramirez wonders how text messaging became an acceptable part of dating practice. Katy Scrogin asks us to think about what we really mean by and want in friendship now that we can befriend everyone on MySpace.

There are many kinds of indignation. There is the violent indignation of a Mets' fan whose player just struck out and the petulant indignation of a child who isn't allowed to play with a toy that doesn't belong to him. There is the passing indignation of being cut off in traffic and the enduring indignation of being passed over for promotion. For this first column, in this first issue, I'm addressing something that is new to me: indignation over the blatant yet socially acceptable abuse of a simple technology.

An acquaintance of mine claims to have 258 friends. That number could be larger, actually; the figure only represents the number of boon companions who show up on her MySpace page and not those additional pals who might appear in real time but avoid online social networking.

One small viral video likewise typifies this longing for transformation, the will.i.am music video, “Yes We Can.” This musical alteration of Barack Obama’s speech, itself a riff on Dolores Huerta's classic “Sí se puede,” promises change in the moment that we move to the ballot box and vote for Senator Obama. Parts fascism and Internet youth culture, the video moves us to conflate the solitary moment of a vote cast with instantaneous transformation into the change we seek.

April 4th marked the 40th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. While we should avail ourselves of this moment to reflect on King's life and legacy, should we not also reflect upon how we remember that life and legacy?

This year, while serving as a chaperone for college students on a nearly two-week trip to the Holy Land, our Palestinian tour guide pointed out that our bus was now on the Road to Jericho. I sat up in shock; the Jericho Road had now become real and covered in asphalt. I looked at the road, stunned at how much it looked like the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Except, in the middle of the road was a huge concrete wall that seemed to stretch almost ten stories into the sky.

As the 2008 Democratic primary season ends with Barack Obama as the presumptive nominee, I want to reflect back on some of the political themes, realities, and pundit theories that have shaped and invigorated the United States of America over the last year. Some could say citizens of this nation faced three major questions leading to the Democratic nomination.